Poems by surface mail

Press, 30 August 1979, Page 17

Poems by surface mail

By

BRONWEN JONES

Sleepy Stewarts Gully dozes on as the visitor drives in. But the poet is waiting. A quick, tidy up; turn down the record; fingers brush back the soft curls. It’s her first interview.

Jeanette McCracken, 25 years old, is a grandchild of Ireland. For the last five years Christchurch has been her choice, but Masterton is home. She favours dark clothes. Today it is black jeans and a black sweater. A long, narrow scarf hangs round her neck, knotted loosely on her chest. The pale, quiet face smiles a welcome. Pale and quiet, but strong. An Irish face, with smiling Irish eyes.

Jeanette has been a sawmill labourer in the Australian bush, a costing clerk, a geriatric nurse, a car greaser, an artists’ model, and a masseuse. Last year she graduated from Canterbury University in history and English; this year she is taking journalism. She loves mountains. Her first poetry collection was published in June this year by Alister Taylor. Each poem is printed on a loose sheet of cream paper with an embossing by Barry Cleavin, and the sheets come in a large envelope marked “Surface Mail” — poems sent to you by Jeanette McCracken ... Letters to friends.

"They were never written to be in a book. Or an envelope,” Jeanette says. “And at the time I submitted them to see what happened. I continued with it because I began to think they were worth while for what they were.”

A nor-wester arches above the pine trees, but the morning air is cold. So a match to the fire, and the dry kindling crackles. The poems lie in a pile on the sofa. Which one sketches a portrait? They were written three years ago and the poet is a changing lady. But “Burial” may be an insight into moods past:

i don’t need your heritage of pain. or your calculated response to some idea you have of me. i can't deal with your family history, i have relics of my own. bury your own dead my friend, with a spade and hard labour. i leave me to my irish wake.

“I was fed up with other people’s opinions of what I should be doing. I wanted to go my own des-i tructive way without their telling me where I should be at-. But looking back, perhaps they were right.” She pokes at the fire and red sparks shoot out into the hearth. Cigarette smoke hazes the air. “But I was much more reactive then. I probably wouldn’t take any notice at all, now. I doubt if I would even hear it.” “Anyway, it’s wrong to tie poetry to the person who wrote it. Then it’s

more like a confession. A person may trigger me to write something but that doesn’t mean it’s about them. They seem to typify attitudes which I tend to lump together. {

“My poems are little observations meant to be understood exactly as they are. Take what you want from them. If they can’t stand up on their own they can fall down.” Toasted cumpets spread with honey and banana,and a hot cup of tea. The paddock through the glass doors, glistens lush-green. The horses are not there today.

“No-one’s got the right to go around dishing out up-close, up-front statements about people disguised by poetry. It’s not poetry, just comment, and no more valid than other comment about people.” Journalism involves Jeanette in practical work. Down-to-earth people, eccentrics, and experts alike inspire the flowing mind. “It’s an activity rather than a library arse-sitting-upon jhing,” she says.

“For me, studying literature was a bit like poking at a corpse with a dead stick. It has all been said before by people eminently more qualified ■than me.”

But isn’t writing poetry a sedentary pastime? Why does she write it? “I’ve thought for years that people’s actions and words are totally separate. In myself I wanted to try to make them one thing. So 1 thought if I looked more closely at what was going on I could write words which actually recreate the actions that made me write them. “That’s why I feel pleased when people respond to my poems. They see something that they can recognise and feel for themselves. This makes my world a little bigger.” The fire is burning down; live embers drop though a large hole in the grate. Home; back to the haze. The visitor leaves feeling peaceful and quiet. Stewarts Gully snoozes on into the day.

SURFACE MAIL Poems sent to you by’Jeanette McCracken, with embosses by Barry Cleavin.

Letters to friends . . .